


Mad Man in a Basement Office

by sunflowerseedsandscience



Category: Doctor Who, The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerseedsandscience/pseuds/sunflowerseedsandscience
Summary: A tumblr user asked for a Doctor Who/The X-Files crossover, and who am I to refuse?





	

Scully has been ready to kill Mulder for the past few days, but the demise of her Louis Vuitton heels is really and truly the last straw.

It’s not the first pair of shoes she’s sacrificed on the Altar of Mulder’s Poorly-Thought-Out Expeditions, but it’s the first _good_ pair she’s ruined in years. She’s learned, long ago, that her expensive heels are best saved for times when she knows they’ll be in their basement office all day. As such, she has a collection of discount-outlet shoes that look much more expensive than they are, and these are what she favors when they’re in the field.

This time, he’d tricked her. He’d said he wanted to spend the day doing research ahead of an expedition to a local cemetery; then, halfway to the library, he’d changed his mind and decided that the research wasn’t as important as the hands-on investigation after all. She’d begged him to drive back to the Hoover building so that she could at least retrieve her “expendable” shoes from the trunk of her car, but he’d refused.

“We won’t be there long, Scully,” he promises. “And you can stay on the paved walkways the whole time, if you want. Okay?” She had not, of course, been able to remain on the path- at least, not without letting Mulder out of her sight, which, she’s learned, is usually a terrible idea. So, she’d followed him onto the grass, between the mazes of headstones, her heels sinking into the turf on every third or fourth step.

And then it had begun to rain.

In the past few months, there have been five separate missing persons cases in which the vanished person was last seen in this graveyard. It hadn’t been the sort of case that would have caught Mulder’s attention… at least not until one of the missing persons, Evangeline Murray, had suddenly reappeared, living two states away. She had contacted the FBI when she’d read about her own disappearance in the paper. A medical examination had concluded that she was, beyond a doubt, the same woman who had vanished while visiting her mother’s grave. 

The only difference was, she was nearly seventy years older.

Scully catches up to Mulder near a particularly decrepit marble tomb, its entrance flanked by two life-sized statues of angels, their heads bowed as if in sorrow, hands covering their faces. Mulder is studying the tomb intently, though what he expects to discover from mere observation, she can’t say. 

“Mulder, what are you looking for?” She balances on the balls of her feet, attempting to keep her heels from sinking into the mud, and harbors a desperate hope that the leather can, perhaps, be wiped clean later. 

“At least two of the victims disappeared from this area of the cemetery, Scully,” answers Mulder, turning to look at her. “And Evangeline Murray’s mother’s grave is less than fifty yards away. I don’t know why, but I feel like whatever’s going on, this is where it’s coming from.” Scully peers over Mulder’s shoulder, through the pouring rain, at the tomb, but she can’t see anything special about it. Sure, the angel statues are a little creepy, the way they’re looking up over their hands, their eyes blank and grey-

Wait.

“Mulder,” says Scully, “didn’t those angels have their faces hidden a moment ago?” Mulder turns to look.

“Huh,” he says, frowning. He steps closer. Scully reaches into her coat for her gun, wondering if maybe these are costumes, if maybe this cemetery has become the hunting ground for a particularly creative duo of kidnappers.

Suddenly, a voice calls out behind them.

“ _Don’t touch them!_ ” She and Mulder both start and turn, drawing their guns in unison and pointing them at the man running up to them. He’s as tall as Mulder, lanky, with dark hair sticking up every which way. He runs towards them, his beige trench coat open over his dark suit. Scully wonders briefly if he’s not FBI or DC police, investigating the disappearances himself… but then she catches sight of the sneakers on his feet.

“FBI!” warns Mulder. “Stay where you are!” The man stops running.

“For God’s sake, don’t look _away_ from them!” he yells. Behind her, Scully hears a strange grating sound, and she turns. The angel statues are now several feet away from the tomb, closer to her and Mulder, arms held out.

“Listen to me,” says the man in the trench coat, and Scully starts to turn back towards him, though she keeps her gun on the angels. “ _No!_ Didn’t I just tell you not to look away from them?”

“Why not?” asks Scully.

“They can’t move if you’re looking at them,” the man explains. “They’re quantum locked. Literally stone. But if you look away… if you even blink… they’ll be after you faster than you can possibly imagine.” Scully’s heard enough. This guy is clearly crazy.

“ _Quantum locked?_ What on earth is that even supposed to _mean_?” She turns to face the man again, Mulder turning with her, and the man cries out in alarm.

“ _No!_ ”

“Scully, look!” Scully turns back to Mulder, who’s looking at the angels, wearing what she immediately recognizes as his panic face. They’re even closer now, their stone lips drawn back, exposing mouths full of sharp grey teeth.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” says the man in the trench coat, speaking calmly and quietly. “We’re going to back away from here. We’re _not_ going to take our eyes off of them until we’re out of this cemetery. All right?” Scully shakes her head.

“How do we know what we’re backing up towards?” she asks. “For all we know, these are people in costumes, your accomplices, and you’ve got more waiting to grab us from behind.”

“You walk in front of us and look ahead, then,” says the man, “and your friend and I will keep our eyes on the angels.” It doesn’t look as though a better option is going to present itself, and so Scully obeys. They make their slow and careful way back to the paved walkway. Glancing back over her shoulder, Scully sees the statues in the same position. A copse of trees block them from her sight for a moment, and when she reaches the other side, the angels are back in their original positions, guarding the entrance to the tomb, their hands over their faces.

“What the _hell_ are those things?” demands Mulder, once they’re outside the brick walls of the cemetery. They make for the awning of a nearby shop.

“They’re called the weeping angels,” says the man, wiping rainwater out of his eyes and shaking it out of his untidy hair. “As old as the universe, probably. Nobody knows exactly where they come from.”

“Are they… are they human?” asks Mulder.

“Of _course_ they’re human, Mulder!” spits Scully. “What are you talking about? Those were people in costumes! Ten to one, those were the kidnappers we’ve been looking for, or they at least know something about it! And for that matter,” she whirls on the man in the trench coat, “for all we know, you’re involved with them. Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t take you into custody right now!” For some reason, this makes the man beam.

“I’ve got an angry ginger, too!” he exclaims. He grins at Mulder. “Aren’t they the best?” Mulder can’t hold back a snort of laughter. Scully glares at him, and he does his best to look contrite. “Listen, I promise you, I’ve nothing to do with the angels… though you are right, they’re most certainly responsible for your missing people.”

“How do you know?” asks Mulder.

“Because I’ve seen them many, many times before,” the man replies. “All they need is just to touch their victims, and they send them into the past, before their birth. They feed off of the potential energy of the years their victim would have lived in the present.” Scully’s eyebrows are traveling further and further up her forehead.

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” she says. “You expect us to believe this?”

“Evangeline Murray had aged seventy years when she turned up,” says Mulder. “She claimed that one moment, she was standing by her mother’s grave, and the next, she was still in the cemetery, only it was a fraction of the size it is now, and it was twenty years before her mother had even been born.”

“That’s exactly how it happens,” says the man, nodding enthusiastically, rainwater flying from the spiky tips of his hair. “The reason the rest of your victims haven’t turned up is because they got sent even further back, so far back that they lived out their natural lives before their births. This cemetery is a perfect hunting ground for these two- people come here alone all the time, and they’re usually distracted by grief. Easy prey.”

“So how do you get rid of them?” asks Mulder, and Scully wants to shake him.

“We get rid of them by arresting them, Mulder!” she says. The man in the trench coat shakes his head.

“Bad idea,” he says. “And don’t try shooting them, either. Not every threat in the universe responds to bullets. In fact, in my experience, most of the most dangerous ones don’t.” Scully’s about to retort that in _her_ experience, the more annoying threats, at least, respond perfectly well to bullets, but a shout from down the street interrupts her.

“Oi! Spaceman!” A tall redhead is striding down the sidewalk towards them, her expression thunderous. “Five minutes, you said! You’ve had me lugging mirrors about an abandoned warehouse all morning, and then you disappear and say we’ll be all done this nonsense in five minutes- and that was twenty minutes ago! Get a move on!” The man grins brashly throughout this entire tirade.

“That’s _my_ angry ginger,” he says happily. “I think everyone ought to have one.” The redhead’s expression becomes positively livid. “Keep your hair on, Donna! There were some unforeseen circumstances, but we’re all set now, okay?” The woman- Donna- surveys Scully and Mulder with curiosity. Her eyes land on Scully’s ruined shoes, and her face goes from furious to horrified in an instant.

“Oh my God,” she breathes. “Were those Louis Vuitton?” Scully heaves a sigh.

“Yes,” she says, with a meaningful look at Mulder. “They were.” Donna shakes her head sadly.

“I’d say he owes you a new pair, then,” she says. “If he’s responsible. Is he?”

“Yes, he is, and yes, he does,” says Scully, liking this woman more and more. “But it’ll have to wait. We’ve got an arrest to make- that is, if they’re still there.”

“They will be, but I’m telling you, arresting them isn’t the way to go,” says the man in the trench coat. 

“Oh, no?” says Scully. “What do you suppose we do, then?”

“Leave it to me,” he says. “I’ve got a trap all rigged up and ready to go. All I need to do is lure them into it.”

“Which you’ll be doing alone,” says Donna firmly. “I helped you move the mirrors. I’m not setting foot in any muddy graveyard, thank you.” She turns to Mulder and Scully. “Lovely to meet you. So sorry about your shoes.” She grabs the man by the arm and tugs him out from under the awning, back into the rain.

“Just leave it to us,” calls the man over his shoulder. “I promise, you’ve seen the last person disappear out of that graveyard!” With that, he and Donna duck down an alleyway. Moments later, a strange, whooshing mechanical sound fills the air. When it fades away, all that’s left behind is the patter of the rain. Mulder looks uncertainly at Scully.

“What do you want to do?” he asks. She looks out at the rain, back towards the cemetery… and then down, at the sad remains of the some of the most expensive shoes she’s ever owned.

“Let’s let it go for now,” she says with a sigh. “We’ll go back later and see if the… if the angels or the statues or whatever they are… are still there.” 

“And our friend? You want to track him down?” Scully shakes her head.

“Something tells me we’re better off not getting involved with him,” she says.

Scully only has room for so much insanity in her life, and Mulder more than fulfills her madman quota.


End file.
